nowhere in sight; she must have reached the turning. His
mission had succeeded, but he felt no elation. Round the corner, he
picked up his convoy, and, with the perambulator hoisted on to the taxi,
journeyed on at speed. He had said he would explain in the cab, but the
only remark he made was:

"You'll all go down to Mildenham to-morrow."

And Betty, who had feared him ever since their encounter so many years
ago, eyed his profile, without daring to ask questions. Before he reached
home, Winton stopped at a post-office, and sent this telegram:

"Gyp and the baby are with me letter follows.--WINTON."

It salved a conscience on which that fellow's figure in the doorway
weighed; besides, it was necessary, lest Fiorsen should go to the police.
The rest must wait till he had talked with Gyp.

There was much to do, and it was late before they dined, and not till
Markey had withdrawn could they begin their talk.

Close to the open windows where Markey had placed two hydrangea
plants--just bought on his own responsibility, in token of silent
satisfaction--Gyp began. She kept nothing back, recounting the whole
miserable fiasco of her marriage. When she came to Daphne Wing and her
discovery in the music-room, she could see the glowing end of her
father's cigar move convulsively. That insult to his adored one seemed
to Winton so inconceivable that, for a moment, he stopped her recital by
getting up to pace the room. In her own house--her own house!
And--after that, she had gone on with him! He came back to his chair and
did not interrupt again, but his stillness almost frightened her.

Coming to the incidents of the day itself, she hesitated. Must she tell
him, too, of Rosek--was it wise, or necessary? The all-or-nothing
candour that was part of her nature prevailed, and she went straight on,
and, save for the feverish jerking of his evening shoe, Winton made no
sign. When she had finished, he got up and slowly extinguished the end
of his cigar against the window-sill; then looking at her lying back in
her chair as if exhausted, he said: "By God!" and turned his face away to
the window.

At that hour before the theatres rose, a lull brooded in the London
streets; in this quiet narrow one, the town's hum was only broken by the
clack of a half-drunken woman bickering at her man as they lurched along
for home, and the strains of a street musician's fiddle, trying to make
up for a blank day. The sound vaguely irrita